Refreshing and Removing Items in Working Memory: Different Approaches to Equivalent Processes?

Lintz, Evan N.; Johnson, Matthew S.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/z52vf

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…[7] immediately after refreshing. In accordance with the results of this study by Vergauwe et al , a recent study [20] using a paradigm quite similar to the inhibition of return paradigm in working memory also observed facilitatory effects for the refreshed items. So despite the similarities in the paradigm used, no inhibition-of-return-like effects were observed in this study.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 93%

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Inhibition-of-return-like effects in working memory? A preregistered replication study of Johnson et al . (2013)

et al. 2021

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The present study concerns a preregistered replication of the study conducted by Johnson et al . (Johnson et al. 2013 Psychol. Sci. 24 , 1104–1112 ( doi:10.1177/0956797612466414 )), in which they showed an inhibition-of-return-like effect in working memory. Inhibition of return is a well-known phenomenon observed in the field of perception and refers to the observation that it takes longer to look back at a location which has recently been explored than to look at an unexplored location. Working memory is a central concept in the field of cognitive psychology and refers to the capacity to process and maintain information simultaneously over short periods of time. Johnson's study applied the inhibition of return paradigm to the concept of working memory. Their results showed that it is harder to access a working memory representation that had just been thought of, i.e. refreshed, in comparison to an unrefreshed working memory representation. Contrary to this study of Johnson et al ., who observed refreshing to result in inhibitory processes, most studies on refreshing have described its effect as increasing/prolonging the level of activation of the memory representations. In an attempt to integrate these opposite patterns produced by ‘refreshing’, we started by replicating one of the studies on the inhibition of return in working memory reported by Johnson et al .

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…[19] and Lintz et al . [20]. At the moment, several hypotheses as to why these results diverge could be proposed, based on methodological differences between these different studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inhibition-of-return-like effects in working memory? A preregistered replication study of Johnson et al . (2013)

et al. 2021

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“…Although our between-experiments analysis found no significant main effect of probability group, Experiment 4 did have numerically slower RTs than Experiment 1 for all probe types, hinting at the possibility that the conflict between inhibitory and facilitative processes produced higher cognitive load. The nullification of rIOR effectively replicates the perceptual IOR results of Wright and Richard (2000) in the reflective domain; however, the high probability of refreshed probes was not sufficient here to flip the effect from inhibitory to facilitative, as observed by Lintz and Johnson (2020) and other studies using reflective attention retro-cues.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…Recent research from our group (Lintz & Johnson, 2020) has prompted the hypothesis that rIOR is also modulated by probe type probability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although a notable result in itself, this finding leaves open the question of why other retro-cue studies find clear facilitation for the cued item. Compared to our own previous work (Lintz & Johnson, 2020), the primary remaining alternatives concern the number of items in the initial set (two versus three) or the use of explicit verbal responses for refreshing and probe (present study) versus silent (internal) refreshing and a button-press response (word/nonword judgment) by Lintz & Johnson. As many other studies of refreshing have used set sizes between one and three items in the initial set without finding drastic behavioral or neural differences based on set size, the more promising candidate is likely the modality of refreshing and/or the probe. If such modality is indeed revealed to be the driving factor, that could have important implications for understanding the nature of reflective attention;…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Probability manipulations can modulate but not reverse reflective inhibition-of-return effects

Cole¹,

Lintz²,

Johnson³

2021

Preprint

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Inhibition of return (IOR) is a phenomenon of perceptual attention characterized by delayed shifts in attention toward previously cued target locations. In reflective (internally directed) attention studies, response times (RTs) to cued items are sometimes facilitated, but other times IOR-like effects are observed wherein RTs to probed items are slower when the items had been mentally attended (refreshed) earlier in the trial. Perceptual IOR is known to be modulated by the probability that target and cued locations match. If the same is true for reflective attention, it could account for why sometimes reflective attention can lead to facilitation and other times inhibition. In the current study, four experiments examined the potential facilitative or inhibitory influence of probe predictability in reflective attention. We first replicated the design and IOR like pattern of results originally reported by Johnson et al. (2013). In subsequent experiments, when the proportion of unrefreshed probes was increased, the IOR-like effect increased in magnitude. When the proportion of refreshed probes was increased, the IOR-like effect was eliminated, but there was no evidence for facilitation. Altogether, these results are consistent with perceptual IOR literature implicating underlying inhibitory and facilitative attentional processes that can either interact synergistically or nullify each other. Further work will be needed to fully understand the paradoxical effects of why reflective attention is sometimes inhibitory and other times facilitative, but the current results demonstrate that expectation can play a significant role in the size of the effect.

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Spontaneous serial refreshing in verbal and spatial working memory?

Vergauwe¹,

Langerock²

2022

Preprint

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Working memory is the cognitive system that keeps a limited amount of information temporarily accessible for ongoing cognition. One proposed mechanism to keep information active in working memory is refreshing. Refreshing is assumed operate serially, reactivating memory items one by one by bringing them into the focus of attention during retention. We report two experiments in which we examine evidence for the spontaneous occurrence of serial refreshing in verbal working memory (Experiment 1, using letters as memoranda) and in visuo-spatial working memory (Experiment 2, using locations as memoranda). Participants had to remember series of red memory items, and black probes were presented between these memory items, with each probe to be judged present in or absent from the list presented so far, as quickly as possible (i.e., the probe-span task). Response times to the probes were used to examine whether the content of the focus of attention changed over time, as would be expected if serial refreshing occurs spontaneously during inter-item pauses. Contrary to this hypothesis, our results indicate that the last-presented memory item remained in the focus of attention during the inter-item pauses of the probe-span tasks. These findings confirm the boundary conditions of spontaneous serial refreshing that were previously observed for verbal working memory and extend them to visuo-spatial working memory. Implications for working memory maintenance are discussed.

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Refreshing and Removing Items in Working Memory: Different Approaches to Equivalent Processes?

Cited by 3 publications

References 32 publications

Inhibition-of-return-like effects in working memory? A preregistered replication study of Johnson et al . (2013)

Inhibition-of-return-like effects in working memory? A preregistered replication study of Johnson et al . (2013)

Probability manipulations can modulate but not reverse reflective inhibition-of-return effects

Spontaneous serial refreshing in verbal and spatial working memory?

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